


Parole

by Bitsy



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hippolyta Hollister
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-07-07
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:39:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitsy/pseuds/Bitsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written in 2002, written again in 2004, this is a complete and total re-working of the first story I ever wrote for the Red Dwarf fandom.  It's hideously long, completely restructured, and better characterized (I hope).  Takes place directly after "Only The Good," and is the start of my Series IX stories. The re-write is still in progress, but I wanted to get the first bit up today.  Unbeta'd, please let me know if you catch any glaring spelling errors.  Enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Three million years from Earth, the mining ship Red Dwarf. The crew was gone, abandoning ship, taking their chances in the vastness of space in nothing more than what amounted to a few inflatable Zodiac rafts. ...All right, the fleet of Starbugs and Blue Midgets were a _touch_ more technologically advanced than that, but it was a near thing. The Dwarf was burning, listing, flailing in her death throes, a few flares of sparking magnesium and potassium and oxygen disgorged into the endless night as she went. The chameleonic microbe, origins unknown, had claimed another victim. And not one drop its antidote, of soliciumfrankolithicmixyalebidiumrixydixydoxydexydroxide was available for the having. Granted, just saying it was enough to give anybody an aneurism, let alone actually tracking down the compound in question. And yet, and yet, even though the ship was dying, she still had just enough life in her to support one remaining crewman.

But not for long.

Nursing the mother, father and great aunt of all migraines, which had been helped along by that smeggy little vending machine, Rimmer panted along the bottom of the corridor, his lungs protesting like some unwashed hippies outside the G-20 summit. The air was marginally clearer here on the floor, and as his lungs laboured to suck in one more gasp, he reflected upon a life of wasted opportunity, missed chances, crushed hopes, and miserable failure. Lister had a lot to answer for, the goit. It was all his fault, it really was. If it hadn't been for Lister, Rimmer would never had landed on Floor 13 in the first place, wouldn't have been amongst the prisoners left behind, would have been on one of the Starbugs with the real movers and shakers, moving and shaking elsewhere.

A crackle of static, a squeal of feedback, and the last broadcast of the intercom system on the Dwarf began. It was Captain Hollister's voice, thick and gooey like Crisco, with a nice patina of sheer panic over top. He was broadcasting from the head of the Starbug fleet, screaming out to a cold and unfeeling universe, hoping against hope that somebody, somewhere, would hear him. And the Dwarf's systems, ruined entirely by the microbe, broadcast it live and local and late-breaking through the entirety of the ship, rather than in the privacy of an officer's office.

"The microbe's on the Starbugs! It's on the ships as well! Mayday...! Mayday...!" And then an aside: "...It's only a bank holiday." Back to the panic, now getting more and more broken and hard to understand. "Breakin-...-p, no cha-...gotta get back...MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDA-..."

And then another screech.

And then silence.

Coughing and retching, Rimmer knew he'd just heard the last words of a dying man, and felt some small shred of pity and horror for the one thousand, one hundred and sixty-six people that had just been snuffed out like so many birthday candles.

But then his pity and horror tapped him on the shoulder and rudely reminded him that, oh, hallo, _you're_ dying too, bucko! Maybe you should focus a bit more on that! And, not for the first time, he cursed the day his father's sperm hit the bullseye. Tears of self-pity and smoke streamed down his soot-marked face, and he curled up into a foetal ball, waiting helplessly for the end. He was not a suicidal man by any stretch of the imagination, but there came a point when you had to lay down arms and surrender. Of course, that was always his first option, being a congenital coward, but what the smeg.

Through the tears and the smoke, however, Rimmer was quite astonished to see..._movement._ No. Impossible. There was nobody left on this wreck but him. He weakly raised his head and called out a terrified, "Hallo?" Only silence and the roar of fire eating away at the last precious bits of oxygen answered him. So he called out again. "Hallo?" Still no answer. And his temper flared. Stupid smegging hallucinations, why did they have to happen _now?!_ Or, if they had to happen now, why couldn't they be of a beautiful woman in a g-string bikini offering him a scuba-diving kit? He laid his head back down, and resolved not to speak to an hallucination ever again in his life. And considering his life was now measured in seconds rather than years, this was an easy promise to keep. He felt proud of himself for deciding it.

But then the movement continued, resolved into a sharper picture, a monstrous vision straight out of hell in high definition. Through the smoke and fire, a long black cloak swooshed into being, supported by a figure that was at least eight feet tall. And the figure held a long and lethal looking scythe in one bony hand. Hell, the hand was more than just 'bony,' it was downright...skeletal...

Oh, smeg.

Death loomed over Rimmer's collapsed frame, non-existent lungs whooshing like a broken bellows, a rattling breath that put one in mind of hospital life support machinery. Why the smeg did Death need to breathe? Now that was just a silly affectation. Rimmer felt the urge to write a complaints letter to the Front Office, and jolly well would when...he...died...smegging smeg. All he could do was lay there stupidly, looking up at the anthropomorphic personification of humanity's greatest collective fear. The hand that was unencumbered by the scythe reached down, an obvious invitation. Rimmer hesitated. Taking Death by the hand rather fell into the whole 'never again speak to hallucinations' field, and was reluctant to break his word this late in the game. He wondered if prayer would be recommended after a lifetime of sneering at God. But, lacking anything else pertinent to do other than lay there like a sausage, Rimmer took the proffered hand. His brain shut down defensively as the bones enclosed over his flesh, to block out the exact sensation of it, and he was pulled to his feet. Automatically, he brushed himself off, the habits of a lifetime coming into play one last time. He noted with some small measure of astonishment that the air suddenly seemed clearer, and it was easier to breathe. Or perhaps his lungs were finally giving up the ghost, and this was the last hallucination before oxygen privileges ceased.

Was it his imagination, or was Death looking at him pityingly? Could there be a spark of fellow-feeling there? Was Death putting himself in Rimmer's shoes? An unpopular figure that was avoided at all costs, they both had that in spades. But it was just a trick of the light. At the same time, the invisible look from under that cowl was one of satisfied determination, a tricky job well done. Death had a score to settle here, and Rimmer knew it. Why, he had no idea, but that was definitely the way of it. This was _personal._

ARNOLD JUDAS RIMMER, YOUR LIFE IS AT AN END. COME WITH ME.

Death's voice was like the bell over a church, calling the parishioners to a funeral mass. Sepulchral and grave and mossy, and cold like a nun's knickers. And then, Death really seemed to get into the whole thing, and his voice took on something resembling enthusiasm. Even a garbage man had to find some little bit of something to gush about, the chance of finding a treasure in amongst the rubbish. Death, apparently, was a mythology geek.

WE SHALL CROSS THE RIVER STYX, WHERE YOU SHALL PLACE A COIN IN THE...

Rimmer felt his eyes glazing over. This was worse than being trapped at a party with a hostess who was a gardening nut. He had absolutely no interest in learning all about the apartments in the inner circles of hell and how much of a mess Cerberus makes when he's out on walkies, thank you very much. His life was about to end, and he was being treated to a lecture as to what sort of stupid bureaucratic bullshit he'd have to go through to take possession of his halo and harp. Or pitchfork and slide whistle. Whichever he rated.

Several bits of information cascaded into his weaselly little head, a puzzle coming together, its picture a glowing neon sign to point the way. The air was clearer and he felt physically fine. Death liked to pretend it had lungs, ergo other bits of soft tissue could also be extant. Rimmer could touch him.

"Not today, matey."

Without a second's hesitation, Rimmer brought his knee sharply upwards, aimed unerringly at Death's bony groin. It connected in a very, _very_ satisfying way, with a little bit of a click noise, as kneecap met pelvic bone. And, just as Rimmer suspected, Death whooshed in shock and concertinaed down onto the deck, scythe clattering to the side harmlessly, as those bony hands clutched at metaphorical love spuds. Really, it was too easy. He was all too human, Death was. Probably picked it up hanging about all the wrong elements of society. And all the right ones too, come to think on it.

"Remember, only the _good_ die young."

Exultant, Rimmer turned on heel and ran like a cheetah who'd just swallowed an entire case of rocket fuel and then farted on a match. He was _alive._ He was still _alive!_ He'd just kneed Death in the happy sacks and was _alive._ It was about bloody time his luck changed. And, behind him, he heard that church bell voice, now considerably strained, say something that struck him as utterly hilarious.

THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE...

Too right it hadn't! Don't mess with Arnie J. m'laddio! There was only one top dog around here, and Rimmer had every intention of being the one with the steak. Not even Death could keep a bastard down.

Of course, there was only one small problem. The ship was still afire. This magical feeling of well-being wouldn't last forever. Eventually, he would indeed run out of fresh air and be face to face with Death once more. And the next time? It would be personal, and he'd be smegged right the hell off. Rimmer wondered if Death could get in trouble for torturing his pick ups. Would God put him on probation? We'll see how you do after a hundred corpses, otherwise you're on the dole, chum.

He picked up speed, and went to the one place he had left to go: the captain's room at the end of the hall. A dead – oh god – end. But a dead end with what was left of the Dimensional Opener By Mirror, or DOBM. A bloody stupid name for a bloody stupid piece of kit. It was about sixty-five percent melted, but its shape was still recognizable. It was still aimed at the mirror. In a panic, knowing that Death was sure to recover any second and come barreling down the corridor, Rimmer thumped the DOBM with one impotent fist. There was a spark, and a chunk slid off like jelly and splattered on the floor. Oops. Erm.

"C'mon, work you stupid piece of smeg," he muttered, fiddling with what was left of the knobs and dials. There was another spark, and a low-pitched, droning hum, like a hive of honeybees that were on strike. And then...and then a thin ribbon of energy snaked out of the thing, and smacked into the mirror pathetically before dying out. He cried out in triumph, and then wailed in despair. Another thump to the dissolving thing, and then he was across the room, pounding both fists on the mirror ineffectively.

"Open up!" he screamed in a rapidly descending panic. The adrenaline of his narrow scrape with Death was wearing off, leaving him shaken, and dizzy, and beginning to cough again through all the smoke. Oh. That meant that he was about to die again, didn't it? Oh, god. Oh, god, this time it was going to be worse, he was going to be tortured before he died, he just _knew_ it, knew it with a certainty that was born of his rampant paranoia, knowing that's what _he'd_ do to somebody who kicked him in the jimmy.

Nothing. More nothing. Entire precious seconds full of nothing that just kept ticking by, as his cough got worse and his legs got weaker...

Frustrated, angry beyond all rationality, he picked up what was left of the DOBM and hurtled it at the mirror, intending on breaking both, fulfilling his childish need to hear things shatter and pop. It would be the last second of pleasure he ever got, really, and found the price worth paying. He screamed incoherently at the universe, one last scream of defiance against a miserable existence.

A flash. A bang. A pop. Just liked he'd hoped for. Long lethal shards of mirror exploding outward and upward and downward, surrounding him on all sides but somehow miraculously missing his body...and then he was absolutely positive he was going stark raving mad. Because everything seemed to _freeze_ for one moment, as the stored up energy in the DOBM imploded.

If you've ever had a wisdom tooth out, you know the sensation of having an extra hole in your head, and being unable to resist probing at it with your tongue. Rimmer felt like that, only all over his body. A sucking, tingling sensation surrounded him, pulled at his pores and flowed over his flesh, as he entered the multiverse at something just below the speed of light. The Dimensional Opener had run absolutely amuck, and the shattered mirror interacted with the prism in the device in just the wrong way. Or perhaps it was the right way.

Rimmer's tortured brain screeched in panic as he vanished from his dimension of origin in a puff of smoke. And it was at that precise moment that Death entered the room, angry as hell and and sore in a technically non-existent tender spot and looking to get a little bit of revenge. Death stared at that wisp of smoke and the shattered mirror for a long moment.

And then he snapped his fingers in disappointment.

BLOODY EVADERS, THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW...

Hurtling through the fabric of the cosmos, Arnold Rimmer was reduced to a gibbering pile of phlegm, his mind unable to cope with the true nature of reality. Dimensions opened up in front of him, behind him, an entire corridor of mirrors, mirrors of mirrors, like a low-grade funhouse in Kent. He caromed wildly along, a skipping stone on the surface of reality, bouncing here and there off the angles of various dimensions. Where he touched, he left a few lasting scars, ripples across the lake that would always be there, hanging in space. Rimmer didn't know it, but his arse completely changed the course of a massive intergalactic war between two alien races, causing genocide and the eventual failure of a star. So it goes. He always did want to make a difference in his life, after all. His mum would be so proud.

Mum. His mother's face suddenly loomed out of the reflections of reality, in a million, a billion permutations. Her as a little girl. Her in the arms of a man who was decidedly not his father, but that was nothing new. Her on her deathbed. Her her her her her...a googleplex of possibilities, all played out in front of him like some dodgy cinema of the damned. And the concept of infinity thudded into his cortex, like a baseball falling from a great height and landing in wet concrete. Infinite dimensions, all based on the infinite decisions of infinite people. And his own thoughts, his own mind, was able to somehow _choose_ which dimension he got a peek at. He'd thought of his mother and there she was...and then the logical next step, his father's face appearing as well. Then his grandparents, both sides. Their grandparents. Back and back and back, a million generations, until he was staring at the primate face of his most distant ancestor, staring piggishly back at him in monkey shock. It wasn't just dimensions of reality, but dimensions of time, all centered around Arnold Judas Rimmer. He couldn't help but be in awe at the amazing, incomprehensible odds that had been against him, for him to even _exist._ And perhaps that was why he survived this assault against his consciousness: his ego was already so puffed up that of _course_ the universe revolved around him. Anybody else would have gone utterly mad by now. Or perhaps he went mad back when he came face to face with Death. Either way, madness wasn't as bad as he'd heard, really. In fact, it was actually quite pleasant, now that he'd gotten used to the shock. Lister wouldn't have made it this far, that was certain.

Lister.

Now it was Lister's turn at the head of the queue, and an infinite number of slivers of reality obligingly lined up to parade past Rimmer's eyeballs. Lister as a lad, going to a juvenile detention centre, which Rimmer knew for a fact had never happened to his friend. Lister dropping his skateboard in front of a naked girl, which Rimmer knew _had_ happened. Lister in art school, Lister in law school, Lister in prison, Lister on the Dwarf alone, Lister putting a noose around his neck and ending it all, Lister making love to Kochanski, Lister Lister Lister, endless chipmunk cheeks and dreadlocks and stained t-shirts.

One different.

One _different._

This Lister, unlike all the others, was staring back at him in shock, as if he could see Rimmer's mad journey through this rabbit hole. And perhaps he could. For just one split second out of an infinite number of seconds to choose from, their eyes met, and recognition hit. This was _his_ Lister, no doubt about it.

And, much to Rimmer's infinite amazement, Lister reached into the shard of mirror and grabbed Rimmer by his uniform's lapels.

The multiverse has judged you, Arnold Judas Rimmer, and found you worthy of continuing to exist. But it still spat him out like a mouthful of sour milk. With a jerk, and a distant tinkling noise, Rimmer was yanked into a new dimension of reality by Lister's strong Scouser grip. The howling woosh of the winds of reality died in his ears, to be replaced by the panting of his savior and friend and bunkmate and subordinate and perpetual annoyance. Absently, he recognized this room as their cell on Floor 13. How they'd gotten in there, he didn't want to know. And, clustered behind Lister were the pale faces of Cat, Kristine and...well, all right, Kryten always looked a bit waxy, but it was particularly pronounced now. In fact, the mech seemed to be having something of a minor fit, probably due to the broken mirror over the cell's sink. Ah, that had been the source of that tinkling noise. He'd broken the mirror on his way into this dimension.

"Rimmer! Smeggin' hell, we were just about to try to go back and rescue you," gasped Lister, bent over double at the waist, his hands on his knees. He looked up accusingly at the taller man, perplexed and relieved. "How the hell did you get into the mirror like that?"

Rimmer began to open his mouth to explain, to tell the whole sordid tale of his rumble with the Grim Reaper and his tumble through the vastness of the multiverse, but found himself at a total loss for words. For the first time in his life, nastiness did not spring unbidden to his lips. He had no clever retort, no cutting insult, no whining excuse. Mainly because he felt a distracting, warm trickle down his forehead. Gingerly, he raised a hand and touched his hairline. His fingers came down red. Blood. He was bleeding. Ah, the broken mirror must have sliced him up pretty good. So he didn't speak. Instead, his eyes simply rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the floor in a dead faint.

He never did react well to the sight of blood.

So he missed his ignominious manhandling up to the prison's infirmary, he missed Kryten's hastily cobbled together (and mostly incorrect) hypothesis as to what had happened to Rimmer, and their discovery that this dimension was almost exactly like their own, including the fact that they were all prisoners. It was identical, down to the tiniest detail.

With one major exception.

That exception was going to live to cause them all a great deal of grief. The bitch.


	2. Chapter 2

"Rimmer?"

"Yes?"

"You awake, man?"

"No, I'm talking in my sleep, actually. Of course I'm awake, you git."

With a grunt of either amusement or annoyance, Lister swung his body off the top bunk with a practiced ease, chubby little gut and big fat bum describing a perfect arc through space as his bare feet landed on the herringbone-patterned deck. He was in his stained t-shirt and shorts, looking for all the world like he'd just lost a fight with a cheap textile factory in Indochina. And the shorts were so ancient, you could practically count the pubic hairs through the threadbare cloth. Ugh. Rimmer shuddered dramatically and rolled over just as Lister snapped on the brutally glaring overhead light. Little green and purple spots danced in front of Rimmer's vision for a split second, and then he slammed his eyes shut. The spots did not abate.

"Just checkin'," said Lister, rummaging around in his locker for something. Probably his cigarettes. Yup, there was the tell-tale flick of the ancient steel lighter, and the clouds of noxious smoke stinking up their quarters. Yes, they were back in their quarters, finally on parole after their stint on Floor 13. It had been a full forty-eight hours since their release, and they still had to wear the bulky plastic tracking anklets at all times. In the shower, to bed, every single day, every single night, plastic and aluminum rubbing tender flesh raw. Of course, it was only until tomorrow, when they would all of them, Lister and Rimmer and Cat and Kryten and Kochanski, meet their parole officers for the first time.

Lister pulled up his chair, scraping the metal legs across the metal floor with a whine of metal that was contemplating fatigue. Straddling it backwards, he absently reached down and scratched at his offending ankle, cigarette dangling out of lazy lips, spirals of yellow-blue smoke drifting around his ears. This infuriated Rimmer, who in vain had reinstituted the "NO SMOKING" sign which hung above their bunks.

"Lister, it's two o'clock in the morning," Rimmer whined, opening his eyes. "If you needed to have a fag, go out into the corridor. Why'd you wake me up?"

"But you already were awake," answered Lister, grinning cheekily and puffing away. "Besides, I can't leave the room, you know that."

Ah, the other reason Rimmer was infuriated. At least on Floor 13, they had their work shifts to get to, their Canary missions to run off on. But for the last two days, they hadn't been able to go anywhere at all. They were trapped together like rats on a sinking ship, no respite, no relief. No wonder they were at each other's throats. Just a few hours earlier, they'd had a bloody, blazing row about nothing much in particular, which had ended in mutual silence and sulking off to bed, both of them laying sleepless and staring at the ceiling. Hence Lister finally deciding to call it an effort wasted and hopping up for a quick ciggie. Rimmer sighed and gave up himself, sitting up on the edge of his bunk and rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms.

"Look," started Lister, "I'm sorry about...about that." He took his cigarette in between stubby fingers, and then waved his hand around vaguely to indicate their quarrel. Ash flew everywhere, punctuating his words. "I'm just a bit wound up, yannow? I'm nervous, man."

Rimmer looked up, jowls drooping, and he scowled.

"Lister, you're not seriously telling me that you're nervous about being out of Floor 13? Smegging hell, you're like those sad acts who get sprung from prison and then go out and steal a car again just so you can be back to your routine. Three squares and a roof over your head, is that it? Well, some of us have loftier ambitions than being Baxter's footstool, so pardon me for not being entirely sympathetic."

"No! I mean nervous about meetin' our parole officers, you goit! Haven't you seen 'em?"

Rimmer nodded morosely. Oh, yes, he'd seen them. He and Lister and Kochanski had all gathered around the view screen, along with a few dozen other offenders, that last day in the can, as their assignments were scrolled across the screen. And, invariably, every single parole officer was a big, butch bruiser, each and every one of them, even Kochanski's matron. Hell, she was the worst of the lot. She looked like she could play Z-Axis field tackle on the London Jets. She looked like she could bench press a refrigerator. She looked like she needed to shave her legs with reinforced titanium-bladed chainsaws.

"The way I look at it," he said with a shrug, "is that we can't do a damn thing about it. So we'd better prepare our tongues to be licking boot for the rest of our natural lives. I'm already well ahead of you there, Listy, so you'd best get cracking."

"You would," sighed Lister. "Rimmer, you're as spineless as an earthworm that's been trod on. You could give lessons to the Cowardly Lion. The only difference is he turned out okay in the end. You're always gonna be like this, aren't you?"

Rimmer stiffened, sitting up straighter, instincts aroused to high alert. "This is about that 'other' me, isn't it?" he said, his eyes going narrow. "You and that other bloody version of me. And now we've been through how many different dimensions of reality and you're still going on about it?"

"It's nothing to do with that!" said Lister, apologies for starting an earlier row forgotten. "I'm just sayin' that you've got less guts than a butchered sheep in a Greek deli."

"And the other me did?" he pressed, waving a hand out toward the porthole window as if he were indicating the vastness of the multiverse beyond and where his alternate self could be.

"No!" groaned Lister, slapping his forehead with dismay. He hated this topic of conversation, _hated_ it with a passion. It caused him emotions that he was definitely not ready to cope with. So he decided to nip it in the bud once and for all, and put a stop to Rimmer's pointless jealousy. "Look, as far as I care, the only difference between you two is that you're here and he's not!" spat Lister. The logic of that made Rimmer pull a face, the one that made him look like a constipated ferret, and shake his head.

"Come again?"

"You're the same man. You two were..._are_ exactly the same. The only difference is...he left. And you're here. All right?"

"Except he got all the experience, all the knowledge, the fast spaceship, the great hair, he got all the lucky breaks..." Rimmer began with a whine. And that made Lister's head snap off in annoyance.

"Lucky breaks?! You gotta be smeggin' jokin'. If he were here right now, you know what he'd say to you?"

"Stop using my face you goit, it's mine?"

"No! Well...yeh, probably. After that, though. He'd say you were the one that got the breaks, man. He'd be so narky at you."

"Me?" Rimmer shoved himself off of the bunk, crossing his arms over his chest. Already he was going into defensive mode, not wanting to hear it. "How the hell do you figure that? Nearly two years in the brig, getting beat up by Baxter and his cronies once a fortnight, and having to invest heavily in soap on a rope, and now I'm going to be meeting a big beefy parole officer tomorrow who's going to make my life a series of calculated miseries until the day I croak...my career is over, we're lost in deep space, we'll never get back to Earth, how the hell would you consider _that_ a lucky break?"

"You're alive," said Lister quietly, lighting up another cigarette.

Rimmer visibly deflated, like a dirigible that's just hit a mooring tower. He never liked it when people pointed out that he really didn't have it all that badly after all; his miseries and disappointments and neurotic impulses were what he wallowed in and lived his day-to-day life in. But this one was definitely a biggie, too big of a good thing to ignore.

"There is that," he said, sitting back down on the bunk, his right leg jiggling wildly.

"Look," said Lister tiredly. "I don't get the metaphysics of this multidimensional smeg. You're here, you're you. I'm here, I'm me. As far as I care, that's really all that matters, yannow? Whatever else is goin' on out there, wherever it is, doesn't really matter. I'm just gonna be me. So I suggest you just be you, and not worry about anythin' else."

Rimmer was quiet for a long moment, turning those words over in his head. There was something wrong about that, he thought. Something that needed addressing. But he couldn't put his finger on what it was. He felt it was of vital importance that he at least _acknowledge_ the other dimensions, the other choices. But his subconscious had scabbed over his little trip through the mirror, and so he couldn't make the ideas gel in his mind. So he settled on an indifferent shrug.

"I didn't know you were such a philosopher, Listy."

"Yeah, that's me. Blokish, illiterate space bum who gets his jollies unscrewing the inscrutable." He dropped his cigarette into a can of half-empty soda (no lager for paroled prisoners until requisition form 5-P had been approved by officer of record), and hurtled himself back up onto the top bunk.

"Get some sleep," he finished. "Long day tomorrow."

"Today." Rimmer glanced at the clock. "Four hours from now, actually."

"Smeg. Shut up."

"Make me."

"G'night, smeghead. Lights!"

And yet, sleep did not claim either of them, as they both lay awake, thinking their own deep thoughts, and still stubbornly mourning what simply could not be.  
~~~

Bleary-eyed and yawning, Lister and Rimmer sat on a long wooden bench along with all the other 'paroled' prisoners, right outside the parole board offices. There were twelve former prisoners of various offenses and sexes, and one of them was, surprisingly enough, Kill Crazy. And the wacky ginger was just his usual psychotic self, grinning and totally unconcerned.

"Been through this four times already," he chirped to Lister, who was really not in the mood. "And they keep tossin' me back, yannow. Probably because I tried to strangle me last parole officer with a piece of upholstery from this bench!" He pointed proudly to a bit of the bench that was, sure enough, missing a large strip of cloth. Lister scooted imperceptibly away from the stringy man, who was too caught up in his own chirpy, irrepressible insanity to really notice.

"Just hope I don't get Hollister again," he went on. "Hollister's a bear. Hollister keeps kickin' me arse. I kinda like it, actually. Maybe I should request Hollister again."

This made both Lister and Rimmer sit up and take notice. Hollister? Captain Frank Hollister? Kicking ass? Being a parole officer? Kicking _what_? The only way Hollister could kick ass is if somebody tied a donkey to a sturdy post, and it was a reasonably patient donkey.

But before Lister could sort this out, Kochanski shifted her weight and leaned forward on the bench, a little further down the line, and smiled at him. Instantly, all other thoughts were wiped out of his head. Even the thought that they were separated by a line of four burly men...well, mainly men...and that they weren't supposed to leave their seats until they were called up didn't occur to him.

_Hi,_ he mouthed at her silently.

_Hi,_ she said back, just as quietly.

_You okay?_ He found her utterly beautiful, the way she was sitting there in her regulation uniform. She could make khaki look so good...!

She nodded, and smiled again. His heart did a lap around his ribs, shaking its proverbial fists over its proverbial head. For some reason, after their adventure through the mirror and into this universe, most of the antagonism had leeched out of their relationship. He didn't think to question it, really. Whatever it was that gave them the ability to talk without being at each other's throats was fine by him. Dizzily, he gave her a saucy wink, which caused her to giggle silently. He was _flirting_ with her. Right here, on the bench with all these other prisoners about! He must be utterly mad. But he didn't notice them, all he saw was her chestnut brown hair and the sweet little button nose and those lagoon-blue eyes...

Throwing all caution to the wind, he made a little kissyface at her. But his aim was apparently off, because the bruiser next to Kochanski on her far side saw it.

And made a kissyface back.

Revolted, Lister sat back, his stomach churning, much to the apparent dismay of his inadvertent sweetheart, and the amusement of the others down the line. Rimmer was sniggering, to boot.

"Well, I know what you're doing after," he muttered, twisting the knife.

"Shut up, Rimmer."

"Attention!" Todhunter entered the room, looking far too crisp and neat in his uniform. Rimmer was fastest on the draw, snapping to his feet first and throwing a full Double-Rimmer. He got a punch in the gut for his trouble, from the bloke on his left, which left him doubled over and gasping in agony. Todhunter pretended not to notice, even though all the other prisoners were applauding, especially Cat.

"You have your assignments. Your parole officers are waiting for you in the offices down the hall. Abel, Archer, room 1. Go. Cat, No First Name, room 2. Go."

Cat looked startled, and did a spin on the spot, and moseyed down the corridor, looking flash as always, the bastard. Lister couldn't help but be slightly worried for his friend; what on Earth would a beefy parole officer make of the felinoid? What sort of job would there be for a creature descended from cats on board this weird ship? Not for the first time, Lister began to fret about the future, now that the human race was no longer extinct. It was so much easier when it was just the four of them...and he was astonished at himself for _that_ thought. What the hell was wrong with him?

Todhunter kept reading off names, sending Kryten, Kochanski and...Kylowitcz, Percival off down the corridor. Kill Crazy's real name was Percival? No wonder he'd snapped.

Then it was Lister's turn. He took a deep breath, gave Rimmer an apologetic smile, and went off to meet the man who'd be his babysitter for the next six months.

Rimmer, still recovering from the abuse, waited and waited for his name to be called. He'd come in closest to last, like he always did. Of course his parents would give him a name that made him close to last in all tallies. The only saving grace was that there were more "S" names in the world than "R" names. Small comfort.

Then Todhunter skipped him.

"Salt, Bruce, room 11, go. Zaboni, Hubert, room 12, go."

Leaving Rimmer and Todhunter alone in the waiting room. Cautiously, Rimmer raised his hand.

"Sir? What about me?"

Todhunter looked down at his clipboard, then back up at Rimmer.

"Ah, right. Minor change of plans, we've had to swap your parole officer out. Conflict of interest."

"What? Conflict of interest? How so?" Rimmer was confused.

"You were initially assigned to Thomas, but he's apparently dating one Yvonne McGruder right now."

Rimmer felt like he'd been punched in the gut again. McGruder. Was seeing another man? Behind his back! That bitch! Granted, he hadn't exactly been entirely her boyfriend, had he? Just one not-so-successful shag, followed up by a _very_ successful tryst after he'd gotten his hands on the Sexual Magnetism virus. He'd lost count of the times he'd gotten her off, really.

...Wait, that wasn't real. It had happened in artificial reality as part of his trial. He felt himself deflating in despair. God, the woman he loved was getting tupped up one side and down the other by a man who denied people freedom for a living. She was shagging a security officer! Lowest of the low! Probably one of Ackerman's drinking buddies, who would brag to Yvonne all about the best way to crack somebody's testicles with a tea strainer. And she probably thought it was funny. Hell, she probably did that thing where she put her legs up by her head for him!

Nauseated, Rimmer could only nod and laugh weakly.

"Makes good sense to me, sir. Can't have that in a delicate relationship with my parole officer, right?"

"Right," drawled Todhunter, totally indifferent to Rimmer's obvious suffering. "So you're in room 13, your officer is Hollister."

Rimmer's face went the precise shade of a schoolroom chalkboard, and he groaned to himself. Oh, god. How did this happen to him? Why was he the poor smegger who ended up with the bloody _captain_ as his parole officer? The one who apparently could kick arse against all common sense and obvious evidence to the contrary? The one who hated him, had it out for him, wanted him gone? The one who'd ruined his career before it had really even started, by inviting him to that disastrous dinner party with the double-damned hot gazpacho soup? He was finished. He would be spending the rest of his unnatural life shoving pipe cleaners up chicken soup nozzles. He would never be an officer. Or, worse, he'd end up back on Floor 13 with Kill Crazy as his bunkmate, while Lister and Kochanski and the others walked free.

Numbly, he turned on heel and slumped down the corridor, a completely broken man. He couldn't handle it. He'd just had his career, his woman and his freedom, all taken from him in one fell swoop.

He stood outside room 13 for a moment longer, then sighed. Well, no point putting it off. Might as well get it over with. Hand approached doorknob, and he turned it.  
~~~~

Behind that door, a woman was thumbing through a file, staring at the remarks written there. She felt uneasy. This was the file of a perpetual loser, a man who would never get anywhere. It would be a kindness to send him back to the brig, really. At least there he'd have some structure, some purpose. He wouldn't have his entire life dictated by the whims of an incompetent. And that particular incompetent was one that she knew all too well. His incompetence had put her here, hadn't it?

A strand of blonde hair fell in her face, and she pushed it back with annoyance. She should cut it off again, she rather fancied the look now that she thought about it. Oh, sure, it hadn't been cut short by her own choice, but growing it back out for the last two years had been a pain, and it kept getting in the way.

_Rimmer, Arnold Judas. 2nd tech, ib, ppl._ She had to bark an unamused laugh at the abbreviations after his name. Incompetent boob. Promotion prospects laughable. More brain cells than teeth indeed. God, if she were back at HQ, she'd be filing complaints about this dossier. It was obviously personal, and the catty little comments in the margins were worse than unprofessional. She'd never met the man, but had seen enough files in her day to know when somebody was being put down because the officers in command didn't personally like somebody. Gods. _Judas._ What the hell sort of parents saddled their child with that sort of a horrible name?

Probably the same sort of parents who'd named her, actually.

She reached for her cigarettes and shook one out, stuffing it quickly and efficiently in her lips and lighting it absently. It was her sixth cigarette in the last hour, and frankly she didn't give two ripping smegs.

_Brown-noser._ Flip a page. _Boot licker._ Flip. _Miserable little toady with no skills, talent or intelligence._ Flip. _If God intended us to get things done, why did He send us Arnold Rimmer?_ With each remark, she found her ire growing. How dare they? How _dare_ they? Even the trumped-up charges they'd lobbed at him were ridiculous. It was patently impossible for him to have access to the personnel files in the timeframe it mentioned; she'd been in charge of them and she would have _known._

An appendix of remarks, regarding the impossibility of what had actually happened. Mainly to do with the crew being dead for three million years, and resurrected by a Series 4000 mechanoid's self-repair nanobots. That was patently absurd, and frankly impossible, according to the official version. No, the official version was that they'd fallen into some sort of invisible worm hole, and were working diligently to get back to Earth via the same route. It was hard to find an invisible wormhole, but damn it they'd try. And thus, as the official version went, Rimmer and his mates were simply criminals. Weird ones, in the case of the mech and the Cat, but just plain criminals nonetheless.

She'd never felt a second's sympathy for a single criminal given to her care, as Kill Crazy's broken fibula could attest to. She cheerfully sent all of her parolees back to the brig without a second's thought, and the reason she was so bloody angry was because...she wasn't going to do that to Rimmer. He'd done nothing wrong, as far as she could tell; he was the victim of her uncle's rank incompetence and a personal grudge. She hated personal grudges. They landed her here, in this smelly little office devoid of life.

She'd get him back someday, she really would...

The door opened.

Across the span of an office the size of a small closet, she and Rimmer looked at each other. She felt the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up, like a cat when it's pissed off. Her teeth stood at attention, too, and she realized she was grinding them in annoyance. This man..._this_ was him? This scabby little twerp with the unruly hair and the lanky bones? This was the incredible threat to ship's security she'd been warned about? This was who she was supposed to parole? _This_ was what she'd been feeling sorry for? All her prior thoughts of sparing him a trip back to the brig flew out of her head. She wanted nothing more than to get him out of her office pronto! She never wanted to see him again. She wanted to punch his stupid smug face. She wanted to grind his testicles under her heel until he passed out from blood loss and humiliation.

To say she hated him on sight was something of an understatement.

Rimmer stared at the girl behind the small desk. What. The _smeg_. Was this? She wasn't the captain! She was...god, she was awful, with the way she was glaring at him. He felt an immediate dislike of her, strong and overpowering, like the smell of rotten eggs. And more than that, he felt utterly afraid of her. He knew without knowing how that she was capable of some spectacular physical violence, should she get a wild hair up her particular crevasse. She was unattractive, by any stretch of the imagination, no doubt about it. Her nose was too big. Her blonde hair was wild and unkempt. She made the uniform look sloppier than Lister did, and that was definitely saying something. She wasn't even wearing her regulation tie for god's sake! She looked like she'd just rolled out of bed and slouched into this office for no good bloody reason.

Rimmer drew the obvious conclusion. Even though he hadn't seen her in the lineup outside, she was obviously one of the other prisoners and had the wrong parole office.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked incredulously, not bothering to step in and close the door behind him. The glance between them had taken no more than a split second.

"I beg your pardon?" she asked, in the flat tones of an American accent. Oh, good, that was always helpful! She was obviously the shoot first ask questions later sort of American at that, the kind that watched horrible telly and laughed too loud and ate nothing but junk all day long. Bloody colonials.

"You obviously have the wrong room!" he said, pointing at her. "This is _my_ parole office, it was assigned to me. Todhunter told me himself, and he doesn't make mistakes."

"Doesn't he?" she asked, one golden brown eyebrow arching upward. Oh, god, Todhunter. He'd assigned her to this smeggy little polyp. She would have Todhunter's balls for earrings after this day's work...

"No, he doesn't!" Rimmer snotted back. "So why don't you toddle on back to the holding room and get your real assignment?"

"Right, I'll do that" she drawled, making no move other than taking an obscene and dismissive puff off her cigarette. God, what a _moron_ this man was!

"And what are you doing?" he asked in a high tone. "Smoking in the offices? This is a no smoking area, thank you very much!" He jabbed a finger at the sign above her head, which she'd long since defaced with deep scratches from her penknife. "Put it out right this instant!"

With a flat look, she removed the cigarette from her lips, sneered at him, and took one last puff before grinding it out...right on the top of her desk. A spiral of foul-smelling smoke went up as the cheap plastic was burned. Because frankly, she just didn't care. And it showed in the nine other identical burn marks across the visible surface of the desk.

Rimmer gulped. And then saw the paperwork on the desk next to that new burn. He could see his own name upside down on the open file, and a blush of hot shame filled him from his hair to his socks. This crazy bitch had his personnel file! Oh, god, she was probably memorizing it to stalk him and put dead stoats in his shoes.

"What are you doing with that?" he asked, pointing at the file, his voice high and filled with panic. "You can't have that! That's private eyes-only information! Information theft is against Space Corps Directive 886! I should know, I spent two years in the brig for it!"

She continued to say nothing, noting silently that 886 was the directive against using pool noodles to have fake sword fights in the ship's locker rooms. What a complete, utter, _total_ moron this man was! But then he did something that surprised her. Rimmer lunged forward and grabbed the file off her desk, flipping it shut and slapping it against his thigh possessively.

"Now get out!" he snapped again, totally panic-stricken at her continued silence and obvious instability. "Get out of here and let me have my parole meeting in peace!"

"And how do you know," she asked with a smirk, enjoying this game, "that I didn't just kill your parole officer to get to you, Rimmer?"

The blood left his face and puddled somewhere near his knees, which began knocking together in an effort to dislodge it.

"Oh, I'm sure you're tough and frightful and evil as all get out," he said, his voice trembling badly. "But you don't frighten me. I won't be bullied by an ugly girl in an ill-fitting uniform who somehow got herself incarcerated here by being a bloody lunatic. Get out! The captain will be here any moment anyway!"

It clicked. It _clicked._ She finally got why he was behaving like this, and it made her burst out laughing. It was a loud, half-unhinged laugh, like she had no idea how to do it properly and had learned to laugh by rote. It was a laugh that set one's teeth on edge, and she seemed to know it, and used it to its full effect. Rimmer cringed back again, wondering if he could get out the door and down the hall before she broke his neck.

"The captain?" she hooted, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. "You think your parole appointment is with the _captain?_ Like he has nothing else better to do? Smegging hell, you're a bigger idiot than I thought!"

Rimmer was still edging toward the door. "Look, Todhunter told me my parole officer was Hollister. Captain Hollister is the only 'Hollister' on board this ship. Right...?"

"Nope!" the woman crowed cheerfully, and _moved._ She vaulted over the desk fluidly, lashed out with one foot and kicked the door shut with a bang, and had the fleshy bit of Rimmer's shoulder pinched painfully between thumb and forefinger all in the same moment. Whimpering, he all but collapsed in agony, sliding into the chair she shoved him toward, still grinding expertly away at that nerve she was pinching.

They ended up nose to nose, her eyes gleaming with mad power, almost like she was sexually aroused. With her free hand, she slipped the personnel file out of Rimmer's unresisting hand, and placed it gently back on her desk. He was sweating bullets, trembling with pain, and sitting absolutely still. They locked eyes for a long moment, until the involuntary tears he was shedding caused him to look down and away, ashamed.

"Finished, Mr. Rimmer?" she asked quietly. "Finished being a total smeghead? Have we gotten that out of our systems?" Her voice was low, and thick, and pleased, and her fingers pinched harder until he yelped.

"Yes, I suppose that we have," he managed to whisper. Oh, god, he was going to die...!

"Good!" said the girl brightly, and released him. He slumped down further in his chair, surreptitiously massaging that aching pressure point with one hand while her back was turned. Ow ow ow he was going to be feeling that for _weeks!_ What a bitch! He watched through watering eyes (not tears, not _tears_ damn it!) as she calmly sat back down, opened up his file, and lit herself another cigarette.

"Then let's get on with it, shall we? Let me introduce myself. I'm the ugly girl in the ill-fitting uniform who is going to make your life a pure, unadulterated hell for the next one hundred and eighty days, Mr. Rimmer. My name is Hippolyta Hollister. I'm your parole officer."


End file.
